Secondly I 'll shew that this their confounded principle of perfect Confusion is not only against the Fundamental Law of the Land but against the sense of every Law that ever was made in it Every preamble of an Act and that of every Proviso there runs with A Be it Enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty It is no Stat. if the King assent not 12. H. 7. 20. H. 8. by and with the CONSENT of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in the present Parliament Assembled And then let any sober person Judge where lies the Soveraignty would it be suffer'd to be thus exprest were they not satisfy'd they were not all Soveraigns or if they were ought it not according to this Rebel and Republican run We the King Lords and Commons Enact but I 'll let him know how and what the Libertine would again have that Enacting part of an Act of Parliament to be tho the Politick Knave fear'd it was too soon yet to declare plainly for an Usurpation viz. Be it Enacted and ordained An Act. March 1657. Vid. Act of Oblivion 51 by his Highness the Lord Protector Or the Parliament of England having had good Experience of the Affection of the people to this present Government by their ready Assistance in the defence there of against Charles Stewart Son of the Late Tyrant and his Forces invading this Nation do Enact c. That our Kings in the time of the Saxons Danes and some part of the Normans had more absolute Power over their Subjects than some of their Successors since himself can't deny the Charter of Liberties being made but in the Reign of Henry the Third and when the People had less of Priviledges the Kings must be supposed to have had more of Praerogative therefore we shall examine only what and where the Supremacy is at present and where the Laws of the Land not the Will of the Prince do place it In the Parliament that was held at York in Edward the Seconds time The Rebellious Barons that 15. Ed. 2. had violently extorted what Concessions they pleas'd from the Crown in His like those in the three foregoing Reigns when they seal'd almost each Confirmation of their Charter in Blood were all censured and condemn'd and the encroaching Ordinances they made in those Times all repeal'd Because says the Statute The Kings Royal Power Great Stat. Roll. 26. H. 3. to Ed. 3. 1. Ric. 3. Exact Abridg fol. 112. was restrain'd against the Greatness of his Seigniory Royal contrary to the State of the Crown and that by Subjects Provisions over the Power Royal of the Ancestors of our Lord the King Troubles and Wars came upon the Realm I look upon this as an absolute Acknowledgment of a Royal Power which is sure the same with his Soveraign sufficiently distinguisht here from the Parliaments or the Peoples co-ordinate Supremacy for those condemn'd Ordinances were lookt upon as Usurpations upon the Kings Supremacy which they call the Power Royal of his Ancestors and not as our Author would have too of the Sovereign power of Lords and Commons At the Convention of the three Estates first of Richard the Third where 1. R. 3. the Parliament call themselves so themselves expound also what is meant by it And say it is the Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons of this Land assembled in present Parliament so that we have here the whole three States besides the King owning themselves such without assuming to themselves a Soveraign power recognizing the Right of Richard and acknowledging him the Sovereign And tho I shall for ever condemn as well as all Ages will their allowing his Usurpation a Right which was an absolute wrong yet this is an undeniable Argument that then they did not make their King Co-ordinate with themselves made themselves declared themselves three States without him and acknowledged their King the Sovereign and Supream That Act that punisht appeals to Rome with a premunire in Henry the Eighâ—h's time gives this Reason why 24. H. 8. none should be made to the Pope nor out of the Kingdom because the King alone was only the supream head in it It tells us expressly That England is an Empire that the King the Supream Head has the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Emperial Crown unto whom a body Politick divided into Terms and Names of Spirituality and Temporality been bounden owe next to God humble Obedience c. Who has furnisht him with Plenary Entire Power Preheminence Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction Here his Body Politick is devided into Spiritual and Temporal here he is called the supreme Head and here I think is a full Recognition of his sole Sovereignty And 't is strange that what a Parliament did in Opposition to Popery should be so zealously contradicted by such Sycophants that pretend so much to oppose it In the next place he tells us of an error he lay under that he thought our Commonalty had not formally assembled in Parliament before Henry the Thirds time but of that now is fully Page 103. convinc'd by the Labours of some learned Lawyers whom he names and lets them know too how much they are obliged to him for the Honor But I suppose he reads but one sort of Books and that such as suit with his Humor and Sedition and of that Nature he can meet with Variety for I dare avow that within the space of six years all that ever was or can be said against the best of Governnent our own all that was or ever will be rak't up for justifying a Rebellion and restoring a Republick from falsifyed Roll and Record from perverted History and Matter of Fact by Pens virulent and Factious with all the Art and Industry and whatever thought could invent for its Ruine and Destruction has been Printed and Publisht such an Universal Conspiration of Men of several Faculties each assisting with what was his Excellency his Talent in Treason which seemed to be the Task-Master of the Town and Monopolizer of Trades But our Politician might return to his old Opinion again did he but consult other Authors I believe as learned Antiquarians I am sure more Loyal Subjects who can shew him that the Saxons Councils call'd the Witena Gemotes had in them no Commons That the Conqueror call'd none of them to his great Councils none in those of his two Sons that succeeded nor none in any of the Parliaments down to Henry the Third my Lord Coke tells us of the Coke first Institutes Lib. 2d C. 10. T. Burgage Names this Parliament had before the Conquest as Sinoth Michel or Witena Gemote which he says implyed the Great Court or Meeting of the King and all his Wise Men And also sometimes of the King with his Council of his Bishops Nobles and the Wisest of the People and unless from the wisest of the People and all his Wise Men they can make up an House of Commons I am sure
prevent these very Rebels and Republicans in such Factious Inferences did they for two hundred years agon in the first of Richard the Third Resolve what was â—â—gnified by the three Estates of the Realm for say they That is to say the Lords Exact Abridgem Fol. 117. p. 1. H. 3. â—piritual Temporal and Commons and even long since that much more lately out in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth in that Act of Recognition of her Right where they endeavor to advance her Royalty as much as possible they can and â—â— make the Crown of this Realm as much Imperial there they tell her 'T is WEE your Majesties most faithful and Keeble Stat. 1. El. C. 3. and does not their own Oracle tell them so L. Coke 4 Inst C. 1. Parliam Obedient Subjects that represent the THREE ESTATES of your Realm of England and therefore in King James and Charles the First 's time â—hen the Commons began to be mutiâ—ous and encroach upon the Crown â—hen they having with the help of their â—â—merous Lawyers which were once by â—articular Act excluded the House and H. 6. if less had State in it perhaps it might have been once less Rebellious too those Gentlemen knowing too well the weight â—f Words and what Construction and Sense Sedition and Sophistry can deduct 4. Inst Stat. de Bigamis concordatum per Justiciarios 2. Inst ibid. Stat. West 2. 13. Ed. 1. Dominus Rex in Parlia mento suo Statuta edidit 2. Inst 331. Stat. Circumspectâ— agatis 13. Ed. 1. begius Rex talibus Judicibus Salutem and tho some would not have it an Act of Parliament my Lord Coke says 't is prov'd so by the Books and other Acts 2. Iust page 487. from a single Syllable I am confident it was they contriv'd the Matter and Method so as to foist in the Factious form of this Be it enacted by the King Lords and Commons for that is the General Stile of the Enactive part of most of the Statutes of those Times and this was most agreeable with their mighty Notion of his Majesties making but up one of the THREE that so they might the better conclude from the very Letter of their own Laws That the TWO States which the Law it self implyed now to be Co-ordinate must be mightier and have a Power over their King whom the same Laws confest to be but ONE and the Reason why the forms of their Bill and the draught of the Lawyers and the Lower-House might be past into Act without any Alteration or Amendments of this Clause was I believe from a want of Apprehension that there ever could be such designing Knaves as to put it in to that Intention or such Factious Fools as to have inferred from it the Commons Co-ordinacy For the Nobility and Loyal Gentry that have commonly the more Honesty for having the less Law cannot be presumed so soon to comprehend what Construction can be drawn from the Letter of it by the laborious cavil of a Litigious Lawyer or a cunning Knave and therefore we find that those Acts are the least controverted that have the fewest Words and that among all the multiplicity of Expressions that at present is provided by themselves that have commonly the drawing of our Statutes themselves also still discover as many Objections against it to furnish them with an Argument for the Merits of any Cause and the Defence of the Right of their Clyent at the same time they are satisfied he is in the wrong And for those Enacting forms of our Statutes whatsoever Sense some may think these Suggestions of mine may want That some Seditious Persons got most of them to run in so low so popular a Stile in the latter end of King James and Charles the first 's time such as Enacted only by the Authority of the Parliament 21. Jâ—â—â— by the Kings Majâ—sty Lords and 6. Car. p. 1. C. 1â— 12. Car. 2. C. â—5 Staâ— 2. 13. Car. 2d Commons yet upon the Restauration of Charles the Second the Words With the consent of the Lords and Commons were again reviv'd and afterward 13 14. Car. 2. C. 10. 19. Car. 2. 8. 25. Car. 2. C. 1. 25. Car. C. 9. they bring it into this old agen With the Advice and Assent of Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons according to the form of Richard the 3d. and Queen Elizabeth that resolv'd them to be the THREE STATES and this runs on through all the Acts of his Reign and even in several of them the Commons humbly beseech the King that it may be so enacted I thought it necessary to bring home Buchanan and his Disciples in Scotland maintain'd the same Doctrine of the King 's Co-ordinacy and therefore their Acts in the Rebellion too ran in the Name of the three States But when the King was returned to his Crowu and they to their Obedience the old form was retrieved The King with advice and consent of to our present tho most profligate time as much Acknowledgement as possible I could of my Kings Prerogative from the Laws of our Land and the very Statutes themselves because that some great Advocates for the power of the People some times pretend to plead for them too from Acts of Parliaments tho I think in this last lewd and Libellous Contest against the Crown that lasted for about five year in that Lustrum of Treason there was but one that was so laboriously Seditious so eminently popular as to endeavour to prove the Peoples Supremacy from Rolls and Records and Acts of State and for that recommend me to the good Author of the Right of the Commons Asserted tho I should rather approve of such an undertaking when endeavored to be done from the tracing the dark and obscure tracts of Antiquity and the Authority of a Selden than the single Assertion of a Sidney and the mere Maxims of some Modern Democraticks that have no other Foundation for their Establishments than the new Notions of their Rebellious Authors and that ipse dixit of such Seditious Dogmatists But I am satisfied too that this Gentleman who has laboured so much in vindicating the Commons Antiquity and their constituting an essential part of our Saxon Parliaments did design in it much more an Opposition of our Antient Monarchy and the Prerogative of the Crown than a mere clearing the dark foot-steps of our Old Chronicle and a real defence of Matter of Fact and the Truth And this is too clearly to be prov'd from the pestilent Pen-man's P-tyts own Papers that were publish'd at such a time when there was no great need of such an Asserting the Commons Right when themselves were more likely to have Usurp'd upon the Crown and as Mr. Sidney and his Associates would have it made themselves and the People Judges of their own wrong For to see such a task undertaken at a time when we are since satisfied such dangerous designs were a-foot looks only like a particular
Cook 4. Inst C. 2. Evil Counselling of their King invented very cunningly this popular Opinion to preserve themselves and please the Rabble they had so much enraged And could after so many Centuries after so long a series of time the Principles even of their execrated Enemies by themselves too be put into practice and what is worse still shall the sad effects that succeeded the practising it so lately encourage our Seditious Libellers for its Reimpression if this most Rebellious Nonsense must re-obtain all their declaratory Statute the determin'd Treasons of their good King †25. Ed. 3. Edward may pass for a pretty piece of Impertinence they may do as once they truly did they may Fight Shoot at Imprison Butcher the Natural Body the Person of their Soveraign and tell us the Laws designed them only for Traytors when they could destroy him in his politick The same Laws make it Treason to compass his Queens Death or Eldest Sons and must it be meant of their Monarchs being Married in his politick Capacity as well as murdered or of his Heirs that shall be born by pure political Conception they might e'n set up their Common-wealth then if these were to be the Successors to the Crown But yet with the same sort of silly Sophistry that they would separate the Kings natural Capacity from his political did the same Seditious Rebels as I remember make their own personal Relation to a politick Body Inseparable Rebellious Lumps of Contradiction shall not your Soveraigns sacred Person be preserved by that Power and Authority derived even from the Almighty and whose very Text tells us touch not mine Anointed and yet could your selves plead it as a Bar to Treason because perpetrated under a political Denomination and a Relation only to that Lower House of Commons that was then only an incorporated Body of Rebels and Regicides and this was told us by that Miscreant * Vid. Tryal of the Regicides page 50. Harrison the most profligate the vilest the most virulent of all the Faction concerned in that bloody Villany the MVRDER OF A KING the silly Sot had it infused by his Councel as Senseless as Seditious That it was an Act of the Parliament of England and so no particular Members questionable for what was done by the Body I confess the good excluded Members and the bubbl'd Presbyterian Senate would not allow it for a Parliamentaty Process and why because themselves did not sit in it and truly upon that unexpected and most blessed Revolution might â—hugg themselves and shrink up in a silent Joy that they were kept out And I cannot but smile to see * Vid. Ibid pag. 52. two or three sit upon the Bench and upbraiding the Prisoner for pulling them out of the Parliament and making themselves none †This was pleaded too by Carew p. 76. Treasonable words sworn against Scot. spoken in Parliament he pleads Priviledges of the House for speaking Treason tho 't is expressly declared not pleadable no not so much as for the breach of the Peace 17. Ed. 4. Rot. Parliament N. 39. Persons whom Policy had only placed there when the poor Prince was forc't to compound with a party for a Crown forc'd to prefer those that had â—dethroned his Father before only the better to settle himself in it and to compass more easily the punishment of those that murdered him after Persons and a great one too that I could name that have serv'd him as ungratefully since and been as deservedly rejected Persons that had his late Majesty's Arms been but as Victorious as his Cause was good had been as much liable to the Laws and their Crimes as Capital for fighting him in the Field with an Ordinance of the House as those that brought him to the Scaffold and Butchered him on the Block from the time that their Tumults forc'd him to fly from their Houses they were no more a Parliament than those were afterward that pulled them out and it lookt a little loathsome to see some sit a simpering and saying all Acts must be past by the King who themselves once had helpt Tryal of the Regicides pag. 52â— to pass many without and they could no more justify themselves had it been but their turn to be brought to Justice by their Memberships political Referrences to the two Houses then the Criminal at the Bar by his Relation to the Rump I have their own Authority for it their very * Answer of the Commons to the Scots Com. that the King had forfeited the executing the Duties of his Place and therefore could not be left to go where he pleased Anno. 1646. Imprint Lond. p. 20. Houses Act that they declared designed and actually made their King a Prisoner For they told the perfidious Scot that his denying their Propositions and what were those but Expedients to destroy Him had debar'd him of his Liberty and that they verifyed too when they had got their poor purchase at Holdenby in a usage of their Prince with a restraint that would have been Cruelty to a Peasant and which even his very Murderers enlarged when their Joyce took him from his Jaylers And I am sure 't is provided that to Imprison him till He assent to Proposals shall be * Parliam Roll. Num. 7. Lex Consuâ—tudo Parl. 25. Ed. 3. El. 1 Jac. High-Treason by particular Act as well as to Murder him is made so by the 25. And whatever the Mildness of ‖ H. postsc p. 89. Mr. Hunt the Moderator of Rebellion would have this Mystery of Iniquity would not have it so much as remembered it was these his own darling Daemagogues whom he defends and adores and that even for †Ibid p. 11. Restorers who script him in his politick Capacity anticipated his Murder and then left his naked Person to be persued by the * Salmasiuâ— has the same sort of simile page 3â—3 defensio Regia Wolves that worried it they had turned their House into a Shambles and that of Slaughter and were the Butchers the less Bloody that only bound Him and left to their Boys the cutting of his Throat yet this Barbarity must be defended this extenuated by them and the help of their Hunts and such Advocates the guilt not to devolve to each Individual Member because an Act of an Aggregated House But base Caitiffs to use even the very * Hunt page 94. Lawyers own Language your selves know that a politick Body may be guilty of a most political Treason and tho the †21. Ed. 4. 13 14. and noted Calvin's Case Laws tell us it has no Life or Soul and so can't suffer yet it s constituent Members may lose both be Hang'd and Damn'd in their proper Persons and that for committing it too against such another political Constitution It would otherwise be a fine Plea for Corporators that have been many times Defendants in the Case when their King has been Plaintiff And
ensued a discovered Assassination of their Soveraign and was there no danger of a Parliament no sign of a Protestant Plot Only because the King did not leave Whitehall and go down to Hampton Court because there was no Essex in the Field as well as the Plot no King secured at Oxford as well as in the Isle of Wight that there was no High-Court erected at Westminster but only a better expedient found out at the Rye If these are Arguments to render an House of Commons unsuspected and a Plot of the Protestants unimaginable if because here are perfect Parallels of Proceedings as even as if drawn with a Compass Mathematical and which according to their proper Definition I could draw to infinity yet still there must be presumed a great Disparity between the Subversion of the Government that was actually compast and the Destruction of it now that was so lately intended If there be the least Difference between what led to the last setting up an Usurper an Arch-Rebel in the Throne and these late Machinations of Hell to retrieve the same Usurpation bating but the Providence that interposed against its Accomplishment Then will I own what this Villanous Author will have taken for granted That those that have the least Suspicion of any sort of Parliaments are the greatest Villains that a Plot of Protestants proved by Confession is still a Paradox and that my self deserve what he has merited a PILLORY The Pages that he spends in declaiming against trifling Wit supersedes all answer and Animadversion which himself has prevented in being Impertinently Witty upon the very thing he condemns The stress of his Ingenuity is even strained in the very declaiming against it And Settle has not so much answer'd Himself as Hunt here his own Harangue That Gentleman sate down a while for his second Thoughts but this preposterous Prigg sets himself in his own glass at the same time a Contradiction to his own Writings His * pag. 39. Observations upon the perjuries as he calls them of the Popish Priests that dy'd is so severe that the absolute Argument of their Guilt is drawn from their very denial and their equivocations he suspects from those very dispensations they renounc'd to dying words certainly such an inhumanity is hard which unless he had reveal'd Assurance by Christians must be blamed I confess there is not a Criminal of our latter Conspiracy I will declare Guilty beyond his own Confession and then there is not one that dyed but whom I can well think Guilty His next †pag. 59. Observation that is worth Ours Is that upon the Legislative Power and there he makes each of the two Houses to have as much of it as the King and that I deny with better Reason than he can assert that the two Houses are concurrent in their Assents that Bills be preferr'd to be made Laws I 'll willingly grant 't is my Interest 't is my Birth-Right But that which I look upon to be truly Legislative is the Sanction of the Law and that still lies in the breast of our Sovereign If Mr. Hunt that in many places is truly Pedantick will rub up his Priscian the Grammatical Etymology will make it but Legem ferre and then I believe his House of Commons will be most Legislative 't is their Duty their Privilege rather to bring and offer up all Bills fit for Laws and the King still I hope will have his Negative in passing them the Commons pray petition to have them past and that implies a consent Superiour to be required that can absolutely refuse ‖ Vid. quel Impositions le Roy poit grant sans Parlm Roll. Abr. 171. Le Roy poit Charge le sujet lo◠per benefit del Sujet sans Parl. 1. H. 4. 14. Roll. 2d Abr. 171. Les Commons Priont was wont to be a Form Croke 2d part 37. the King can with out Parliament charge the Subject where 't is thought for their Benefit and allowed to dispence with a Statute that concerns his own resolv'd by all the Justices the King by himself might make Orders and Laws for the regulating Church Government in the Clergy and deprive them if they did not obey 22. Ed. 3. says the King makes the Laws by the Assent of the Lords and Commons and so in truth does every Act that is made and every clause in it * Bract. Lib. 1. C. 2. Bracton says the Laws of England by the Kings Authority enjoyn a thing to be done or forbid the doing These are Arguments that our King sure has somewhat more than a bare Concurrence in the Legislative If not he must be co-ordinate and then we have three Kings which is what they would have and then as well may three hundred I love my Liberty better than our Author who has forfeited his yet I remember when too much freedom made us all Slaves The Extent of the Legislative Power is great but then I hope 't is no greater than the King shall be graciously pleased to grant it shall extend And then I hope it must be allowed that Equity and Justice must always determine the Royal Sanction too which cannot of it self make all things Equal and Just should it stamp a Le Roy vult at the same time upon Acts inconsistent and contradictory upon such as were against the Law of Nature and all Reason such would be de facto void 'T is hard to be imagined such Error and Ignorance in so wise an Assembly but what has but bare possibility in Argument must still be supposed but that it has actually been done will I prove possitively and not with some of their illogical Inferrences suggest that a thing must be so only from a bare possibility of Being Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most excellent Majesty and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament Assembled 't was then first those that were by special Act since declared Traytors made their King * Lords Spiritual Lords Temporal and Com. the three Estates Cook 4. Inst of Par. the very first Leaf and Line and won't they believe their own Oracle co-ordinate assumed to themselves so much of the Legislative that they left out the Fundamental form by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons that the said Earl of ‖ Strafford's Bill of Attainder Strafford be adjudged and attainted of high Treason provided that no Judge or Judges shall adjudge or interpret any Act or thing to be Treason then as he or they should or ought to have done before the making of this Act as if this Act had never been made This piece of Paradox the Contradiction to Common Law Common Sense and Reason had all the Consents all the Concurrences that could if possible have made it truly Law and even his unhappy Majesties forc'd extorted Complyance But will any Creature that is barely distinguish'd from a Brute that can only offer at the mere privilege of his
they are positive sure 't is Impudence as well as Capital perhaps to oppose And yet we see these Gentlemen of so little Law to Labour so much in a dispute that is only to be decided by it what Authority is the singular assertion of a Republican or a * pag. 21. Plato Redivivus that the House of Commons is the only part of the old Constitution of Parliament that is left us or the single sense of ‖ Tryal p. 23. §. 2. Mr. Sidney that the Senate of England is above its Soveraign against the form of the very first Act of State that remains upon Record the very †Magn. Chart. 9. H. 3. know ye that we of our mere will have given c. Chart. Forest 9. H. 3. begins also with a we will Stat. Hiber 14. H. 3. only a mere Order of the King to the Son of Maurice his Judge there the words we command you Witness my self Note that was even concerning Free-hold and a Case of Co-parcenary The Stat. Bisex 21. H. 3. tho concerning pleading and Common Law but an Order of the King to his Judges for the words are we ordain and Command you Stat. Assiza 51. H. 3. The King to whom all these shall come greeting de scacc the King Commandeth Charter these Democraticks adore against the form of the following one of the Forest and Consult but the Style of the Statute Book and all the Antient Acts down to Richard the Second and you 'll find not so much as one but what expressly points out in its Enacting part the sole power of the Soveraign by which it was Enacted all in these repeated Expressions of Absolute Majesty We the Kings of England of our free will have given and granted it is our Royal Will and Pleasure the King Commands the Kings Wills our Lord the King has establisht the Lord the King hath ordain'd And most of them made in the manner of Edicts or Proclamations as in the Margin will appear and tho 't is thought now such a piece of Illegality to be concluded by an Order of Council and even his Majesties late command for the Continuance of the Tunnage and the Resolution of the Judges about that part of the Excise which expir'd has by some of our murmurers been repin'd at tho by all Loyal ones it was as chearfully assented to and as punctually paid yet they shall see that the People heretofore paid such a deference even to an Edict of the Prince that they nearly rely'd as much upon it as the Romans did upon their Imperial Institutions who as I before shew'd lookt upon it as a crime like to Sacrilege but to disobey And this will appear from an †31. Hen. 8. c. 8. Stat. Mert. 6. The King our Lord providing hath made these Acts 2d Inst p. 101. Westm 1. 3. Ed. 1. 1. The King willeth and commandeth Stat. Gavelet even of altering the writ which they say can't be done but in Parliament Enacted by the King and his Justices 10. E. 2. Stat. E. 3. several say we will we ordain so also several R. 2. Act of Parliament in Henry the Eighth's time which provided H. 8 that the Princes Proclamations should not be contemned by such obstinate Persons and oppos'd by the willfullness of froward Subjects that don't consider what a King by his Royal Power may do and all that disobey'd were to be punisht according to the Penalty exprest in the Proclamation and if any should depart the Realm to decline answering for his Contumacy and Contempt he was to be adjudg'd a Traytor and tho the Statute limited it to such as did not extend to the Prejudice of Inheritance Liberties or Life yet the King was left the Judge Whether they were Prejudicial or not and these Kings Edicts by this very Act were by particular Clause made as binding as if they had been all Acts of Parliaments and that it may not be said to be an Inconsiderate and Vnadvised deed of the Parliament to give the King such a Power tho 't is hard to say so of a Senate whom the * Coke 4. Inst c. 1. Parl. writ that convokes them says they are call'd to deliberate To avoid that imputation I must tell them it was very Solemnly a Second time Confirm'd again within three †34. H. 8. c. 25. years after and by that Power given to nine of the Kings Council to give Judgment against all Offenders of the former and tho this was repeal'd in the following Reign of King ‖ 1. Ed. 4. c. 12. Edward a Minor and almost a Child A time wherein notwithstanding there is such a woe denounc'd against a People that have such a King the Subjects seldom fail of Invading something of the Prerogative yet still we see â—ho the Law be not now in force plain matter of Fact that there was once such a Law that our Kings Proclamations were once by express words of the Statute made as valid as the very Act of State it self that made them so that the Judicial Power of the Prince was heretofore less limited and that their Libels Plato Rediv lye as well as their lewd Tongues when they tell us and would have us believe That none but our late King as tell as the present ever pretended to so â—uch of Prerogative or had more allow'd â—â—em by the Laws And let any one but leisurably examine as I have particularly the several Acts of each King's Reign and he 'll find that from this Richard the Second to whose time the Stile of the Statutes as you see was in a manner absolutely Majestick down to King Charles the Martyr That the form 1. H. 4. H. 5. H. 6. Ed. 4. Rich. 3. even all those are pen'd in such Words as will exclude the Commons from being Co-ordinate and so much concerned in the Legislative as these popular Advocates have pretended to persuade us their People are for even they all run either in this form The * King with the Advice and Assent of his Lords Spiritual Then begins the other 1. H. 7. H. 8. Ed. 6. Q. Mar. Q. El. Jac. 1. and Temporal at the special Instance and Request of the Commons or The King by and with the Assent of his Lords Spiritual Temporal and Commons and as if the past Parliaments themselves would have provided againsâ— the Seditious Sophistry of a future Age which they could hardly be thought to foresee since it savors so much of almost unimaginable Nonsense and Sedition aâ— if our Ancestors had feared least some of their profligate posterity seduceâ— with the Corruptions of a Rebellionâ— Age should impose upon the Prerogative of the Crown with any such Subâ—â— Insinuation of their King 's making be Wil. Pryn's Power of Parliam one of the three States and by Consequence conclude as they actually did that the two being greater than him alone could be his Judges and their own Soveraign's Superiors why to
Liberties and will not that neither with our Licentious Libertines be allowed for Law Is not all the Military power both by Sea and Land declared the undoubted Right of His present Majesty and that by particular ‖ 13. Car. 2 d. Chap 6. Vid. the same repeated 14. Car 2. c. 3. Act in his own Reign does not the very preamble of it seem to provide against this very Proposition of such a Parliament or a Plato when it tells us expresly that all Forts and places of Strength is and ever was by the Laws of England the Kings undoubted Right and of all his Royal Predecessors and that neither both or either Houses can or ought to pretend to the same and declares that all the late Principles and Practices that assumed the same were all Rebellious And could some of our Mutinous Members embrace such Propositions from the Press that presumed to tell them they had of late made two such Impertinent Acts in the House †Plato p. 239. 240. 277. Acts invading the Subjects Property Acts betraying the Liberties of that very People they represent In short and that in his own Words Acts that empower the Prince to invade the Government with Force Acts to destroy and ruin the State hindering the Execution of the Laws and the preventing our Happiness and Settlement had they had but the least Reverence for their own Constitution and that Honorable Assembly wherein they sate sure there would have been some Ordered and Resolved for the sifting out such a Pen-man and sentencing such Papers to the Hangman and the Flames what can be the result of this to sober Sense or Common Reason that such Villanous Authors should appear in publick at such a Session of Parliament to Censure and Arraign the very Acts of their former Representatives but that they thought themselves secure from any Violent Prosecution from those that then were sitting and that it was not the Constitution it self of that most Honorable Assembly the Seditious Sycophants were so Zealous for but only the present Persons its Constituent Members they so much admired The last the Tenth of those pretty Proposals that deserves particular Animadversion for several of them Symbolize with one another and so are by a general asserting of the Kings Supremacy sufficiently refuted is the Parliaments Right to the making Peers the prettiest Paradox that the Abundance of Sedition with the want of Sense could suggest I have heard the Laws declare the King to be the Fountain of Honor as well as Justice but the Commons I think as they are no Court of Judicature so were never yet known to be concerned in the making Lords The King whom only our ‖ 3. Ed. 3. 19. Law declares to have no Peer is sure the only Person that can make Peers has not this Power been unquestionably in the Prince ever since these Realms had one to Rule was not the Title of Baron in Edward the First 's Time confined expresly to such only as by the Kings Writ were sommoned to sit in Parliament And even when there was an Innovation in this Point In †11. Rich. 2 d. Richard the Second's Tumultuous Time this Power was then not taken from the King till they took away his Crown did not he take upon him to confer the Peerage and as the first President per his Letters Patents And Beauchamp Baron of Kederminster the First of that Creation did the Parliament ever pretend to make Peers but when the Body had rebelled against the Head and rejected their Prince But the Creation of Honors might well then be inverted when the State it self was turned Topsie It was then I confess they denyed their King too not only the conferring of Honors for the future but passed an * 4 Feb. 1651. Scob. Col. pag. 178. Act for Voiding all Titles Dignities and Precedencies already given by him But this was done to extinguish the very Remains of Royalty that there might not be left behind him the meer marks the Gracious Dispensations of the very Favor of a King the inveterate Villains labouring with their Monarch to Murder his very Memory And sure none of the Nobility have great Reason to relie upon Parliaments for the maintaining of their Old Honor or creating New for the Privilege of their Peerage or the making Peers when the very First thing that they did when they had got the Power was an †Vid. vote Journal 6. Feb. 1648. Vid. Hist independ pag. 15. perfect Diurnal p. 1250. Ordered and Resolved that the House of Peers was useless dangerous and ought to be Abolisht And all the Kindness their Lordships could be allowed was to be capable of being elected into the Lower House and what an Honourable House of Lords was afterward Establisht even by those that had purged away the Peerage may be seen in the Persons of those that Usurper put up afterward for Peers But under the Name the Notion of that other House when they granted that power of their Nomination to that Arch Rebel which they but so lately denyed their Lawful King why we had there then †See the List of their Lordships in Dugd. view pag. 454. Lords of no quality no worth little Land and less Learning Mr. Hewsons Lordship that Honest Cobler Sir Thomas Pride's Lordship Knight and Dray-man My Lord James Berry Black-Smith My Lord Barksted the Bodkin-Seller and the Cant of their Counterfeit Cromwell their Creator might well tell them from the Text not many Nobl's not many wise were called but a Creation according to the very Notion of the Schools An House like that of the World too out of nothing framed by Him that had Himself * Vid. Engagement and Protectors Oath Sworn to be true to the Government without founded in the Perjury of him that made them Peers and of Persons that would have disgrac'd a Pillory Persons prefer'd for their little Honesty little Quality little Sense Persons whose Lands and Possessions could only qualifie them to be Noble by being purchased with the Blood of our best Nobility Lastly Persons that were only samed for their Villanies Mighty but in Mischief making it an House indeed not of Peers but Correction which the very Law tells us must be made up of Beggars and Malefactors This Gentlemen was the Peerage produced †Their 19th Proposition to the King at York by a Parliament's Rebellion to make Peers of which it was too the most natural Result for that very Act upon a Just Judgment would have Tainted all their Blood but they provided here for the purpose Persons that defied superseded the Work of an Attaindure Persons whose Blood even Treason could not more Corrupt This Gentlemen was the product of that most preposterous Inversion when the * The First Feb. 6. 1648. Commons could make Lords and their Kings House of Peers with their very Titles and Honors ‖ The Second 4. Feb. 51. Abolisht by an House of Commons
is a solecism in Sense to imagin that Plebeians can concur in conferring that on others which themselves have not the least Tincture of A Title of Honor Or that any thing besides somewhat that is Soveraign can really communicate it to a Subject And we have seen when it was Usurpt what a sort of singular good Lordships and precious Peers were put upon us The Thebans would not so much as admit a Merchant into their Government till they deserted their calling for ten Years while the meanest Mechanicks were made Members of our House and a Tinker of the Army's just taken from his Tool The Bishop of Ely was accused only in Richard the First 's Time for putting in pitiful Officers into publick places of Trust and 't is but a little since a Parliament intrusted our Lives and Fortunes in the vilest Hands And lastly this very Libel Lashes one of our * Rich. 2d Plat. pag. 116. Kings for the preferring Worthless Persons and makes it even a forfeiture of the power of the Sword at the same time that he contends for the People in this point who were never yet known to prefer any other An Italian State as Tumultuous as our own took upon them once to create a new Nobility but assoon as the popular Faction or if you please the Convention of the People had set themselves for the Preservation of their Liberties to make Lords why truly the Election was like to be of such senseless Scoundrels you may suppose a Barksted or an Hewson some mender of Shooes or a maker of Bodkins But so sensible were those Seditious Souls that they were like to set up their Servants that they wisely resolved to retain their old Masters And I think were not some of us so wicked we should all be so wise too since we saw our own distracted Nation was never at rest Till our Rulers were restored to us as at the FIRST and our Councellors as at the BEGINNING And last of all only let me take the Liberty in this last and dismal scene of Sedition to represent but a bloody prospect of that Harmonious concurrence there is between all sorts of Rebellious Principles tho projected by Persons of different Persuasions Persons that differ in Manners and Customes of their Countries Rebels remote from one another in Time Rebels as remotely allyed in the Lands wherein they live As if the Sea it self could not separate such Seditious Subjects In their Principles and Practices that had defiled their Land with such a mutual Conspiration in the Murdering of their Soveraigns and let in an Inundation of Blood upon the Subjects and this Bloody Correspondency between the practice of primitive Rebels as well as modern between the Proceedings of Foreign Rebellions as well as our Domestick must result from the Reasons any sort of Subjects have to resist their Soveraign which we shall see were at all times with all sorts still the same that is just none at all and that appears in that People of such several sorts were all forc'd to pitch upon the same Pretences for the Justifying their Treasons And to make use of the same Cavil and Calumny against their Princes when they saw they could never ground any real Accusation And lastly to promote the same Projects and Propositions almost in a Literal Transcript for the levelling the raising the Foundations of their several Monarchies and making themselves the Masters of the Crown or rather this Seditious Harmony of all Rebels proceeds from their having ever been animated and instructed by the self same Agent of Hell the primitive Prince of Faction the Devil and this parity of pernicious Principles Practices and Propositions will appear in the perfect parallel that there is between the Proceedings of our old Rebellious Barons in England And the later Rebellion of the late Leaguers in France and the clear conformity of the Proposals of our Parliament and the polticks of this Plato to both I 'll place them in their turn as they succeeded in their time and let them that would prescribe to Treason be proud of the Precedency For the First the Barons being greedy of Rule the Commons of Liberty as a learned Author and * Antiquary le ts us Barons Cotton's view of Henry 3d. know some of the popular Lords began with the plausible pretext of the Peoples Liberty when to suppress these Troubles and supply the Kings Extremities a Parliament is call'd but such an one as prov'd much to the liking of the Lords and as little meant to relieve their King much less to redress the People The Clamor was of Encroachment upon their Liberty To silence that the Charter is several times confirmed But they finding what a power the Kings Necessities put in their Hands were resolved to supply him with so little that it might well keep their King from being Great they * M. Paris pag. 807. force him to the very sale of his Lands and Jewels for Bread and to turn out of his Palace because not able to sustain himself in it they seised upon Dover his Castle and the Kingdoms Key which was Treason for that account to deliver to a Foreigner and than a Fortiori for a Subject to take made Head against their Soveraign called in French to subdue him Which when they had done in which Actions none more Zealous than the Loyal Londers for his Destruction what was the Event Why our Historians tell us and what are still the unfortunate Effects of a prosperous Rebellion Murder and Sacrilege and Sword And the Victorious Barons Lorded it like so many †Baker p. 86. Tyrants too till Providence in a more signal Victory restored their Lawful King and the Subject's Liberty As the Baron's Wars began in King John's Time but broke out in a more Leaguers perfect Rebellion in his Son Henry's so were the seeds of this Civil Dissention sown in the Reign of Charles the Ninth and were fully ripened in the Reign of his Son and that a 3d. Henry too The Nobles here were disgusted and soon made the Commons so too A Parliament there too was thought to remedy those Discontents and that as our Henry's encreas'd the Distemper they told the French too of their Taxes and Impositions and accus'd their King of Misgovernment for imposing them as our Lords combin'd so these Leagued for the redressing of Grievances and were first Aggressors in seising Verdun and Tull two Towns in France as those did Dover and Hull in England * See their History written in Italian by D'avila in Lat. by Thuanus in French by D' Aubigni in English a Translation by Mr. Drydâ—â— their Henry was forc'd to flie from Paris his Principal City His Metropolitan also of Sedition and that by Tumult too And what did it terminate in but in the Murder of their King too The calling in of the Spaniard that was like to inslave the People to a Foreign Yoke and at last weary of the Usurpt Dominion
of the Duke of Mayne that had imposed on them a Council of State too the Tyrannous Assembly conven'd by Conspiraors was confusedly Dissolv'd in as much Distraction and Disorder And the recovered Nation return'd to their Lawful Lord. And did not our own late lamentable Distraction Commence in the Reign of King James and put all in Combustion in Charles the First did not Rebellion in Car. 1. they first practise upon his Necessities to which themselves had reduced him and then remonstrated against such Acts as were the very effect of his Necessity encumber'd with a War or rather betrayed into a breach they would not suffer the * Vid. even Rushw Coll. p. 40. Father to make Peace and then denyed the Son the supplies of War A Parliament is summoned too here and that serves him just as the two preceding Ones did their Soveraign with Remonstrances of Oppressions For this the petition of Right was granted them as Gracious an Act as that of the great Charter but nothing could serve unless like that too 't was sealed in Blood and for that they began by Degrees to be so Tumultuous till this Prince was forc'd to fly his Capital City and that also as in the others prov'd the Head to the Rebellion that succeeded upon their ‖ Exact Coll. p. 123. 21. Mart. Petition the War was first began And Hotham sent to surprize Hull as in the two former were Verdun and Dover and now was all in Arms and Blood which ended at last too in that of their King The Scots called in here as in the former the French and Spaniard the People enslaved by those that set up for their Protectors The Council of State set up here as well as in France and the ruin'd Realms never at rest till they had returned to that Soveraignty from which they revolted It is sad even to see the least thing * Plot in Carol 2d now that looks like a prelude to such a sort of Tragedy The clamors of Sedition still the same Parliaments that are Assembled to redress them ‖ Vid. com Remonstrances 79. 80. Remonstrating against Grievances they never yet felt Subjects †Proceeding Old-Bayly Associating against their Prince for his Preservation the draught the Scheam and abstract of the Baron's Combination The French League the Scotch Covenant so far from an Abhorrence of either as to pitch upon a Compound of all three Designs discovered and detected for the seising of strong Holds the * Rouse's Tryal Tower instead of an Hull and the ‖ Sydney's Tryal Scot invited once more to pass the Tweed for a better booty The Treason of such Practices is never the less because the Providence was so great as to prevent its Execution Had that not interposed the Parallel Lines I am sure would have led us on further but all their draught beyond it must have been Blood A Comparison between the Demands of our English Barons and the Desires of the French Leaguers from whence they have copyed as Counterparts The Propositions of our Parliament and the Proposals of Plato English Barons French Leaguers 1. That the King hath wronged the publick State by taking into his private Election the Justice Chancellor and Treasurer and require that they be chosen by the common Council of the Realm Parl. Tent. 22. H. 3. 1. That the Disposals of Places of Office and Trust in the Kingdom be in the Leaguers vid. Henry the 3d. of France's Answer to their Manifesto who told them 't was against the Prerogative of all his Predecessors 2. That it be ordained that 24 of the most grave and discreet Peers be chosen by the Parliament as Conservators of the Kingdom Baker pag. 8. Ann. D. 1238. Regn. H. 3. 22. 2. That the number of their Kings Council should be limited to 24. D'avila pag. 341. our Propositions were not to exceed 25. or under 15. 3. That those Conservators be sworn of his Majesties Council and all Strangers removed from it 3. The City of Paris set up a Council of 16. of themselves whil'st their Kings was to admit Persons whom they should chuse 4. That two Justices of the Kings-Bench two Barons of the Exchequer and one Justice for the Jews be likewise chosen by the Parliament ibid. 4. These sixteen so managed the Judges of their King upon a Presumption of their favoring their Soveraign that they got three of them strangl'd without process 5. They brought with them Consciences full of Error and Schism against the Laws and the Canons false Prophets fomenting Heresies against the Vicars of Christ Mat. West pag. 332. 5. That there should be a Reformation in the Church and no Hugonots favored 6. They would not have this Henry the 3d's Daughter marryed to Alexander King of the Scots and for a long time would give him no aid which at last with much ado they did 6. That his Allyance and Truce with the King of Navar was against the Interest of his Subjects 7. At Lewes they took upon them so much of the Militia that they made their Prince a Prisoner 7. That the strength of Provence be put in the hands of the Duke D'Aumarle or such others as they should nominate 8. The 24. to dispose of the King's Castles and no Peace till all the Forts and Castles be delivered to the keeping of the Barons 8. Leaguers seiz'd upon the King's City Castles and strong Holds D'avila pag. 328. 9. His Councellors elected by the Parliament allowed him such a pitance for his Houshold that they starv'd him out of his Palace M. Par. 807. 9. That the Kingdom could not be safe so long as the King was environed with Non confiding Persons 10. They chose their own Peers called the Peeres Douze 10. That they might have the Disposal of all Honor vid. their King's Answer to their Manifesto This Parliament of those Rebellious Barons my Lord Cook that had as much Veneration as any Man for that Honorable Assembly called the * Parl. Insanum Cook 's Insti part 3. p. 2. mad Parliament the reverse of that of Edward the 3d. which he calls the ‖ 50. Ed. 3. 4. Inst p. 2. good one And I am sure the Propositions of that in 41 would have made the Learned Lawyer had he lived to see them proposed pronounced that Senate as distracted too as that Oxford one of Henry the 3d 's but it may suffice that special †12. Car. 2. Cap. 12. Act since supposed them in their Witts in declaring them what was worse TRAITORS CHAP. III. Remarks upon Mr. Hunt 's Postscript THIS Disingenuous Author with his Hypocritical Apology for the Church of England has just done her as much Mischief as that of Bishop Jewels sincere one did her Good That pious Prelate with his unanswerable Arguments had defended her against all the powers of the Pope and this with his Argument which he Answers himself has made her all Popish Never did an Hypocrite
destroyed because some Persons can maintain another no more than the Systeme of Plolomy was presently False only because Copernicus had invented his for True for the bare contradiction and Clashing of positions convinces no more than the giving the Lye but when it is prov'd upon them in one that even from their own Principles and Premisses they cannot draw the very Conclusion they design as it was since in the other that from their own Hypothesis they could not solve all the Phrases and Phaenomenons themselves would make to appear then certainly they must allow that themselves are in the wrong tho they will not Confess their Foes in the Right And now having at lenght examin'd their Original Power of People let us a little consider how long and from whence our Kings have had their Original If we must make words only instead of an Argument and cavil about an Idiom in Speech as sâ—me of their critical Contenders about this Origen of Kings have very vainly and as Foolishly quarrel'd at then we must consult our Dictionaries and the Dutch Tongue for without doubt till the Saxons settled here they had some other appellation and were only from them call'd Konyngâ— and since Kings but if we consider the Nature of the Government it is that which from the Greeks we call Monarchy which from its own Etymology best signifies and expresses the Sense that it bears which is the Governing part and the Supream power plac'd in the sole hands of some single Person and then the Queston will be only this how long that has obtain'd in the World by whom first instituted and in whom it first commenc'd For the first 't is undeniable that its Original was with that of the World and God himself gave it by the Name of * 1. Cen. v. 28. Dominion to his Adam he had Created which in express Terms was given him first over all the Living Creatures and then over thâ— product of his own Loins his Wife anâ— 4. Gen. v. 7. after that as if Providence did desigâ— to prevent the dispute about the Precedency of Primogeniture it gave in express words a Superiority to Cain that the younger should be in some sense his Subject that to him should be his deâ—â—re and that he should Rule over him from whence it was assoon Communicated to the Several Heads of the Families that were the product of their Loins and so succeeded in a sort of subordinate Government according to the Antiquity of the Tribe or Family That this was then such Authority as we now call Kingly is both nonsense to assert and as great a Folly for any to require that we should maintain for they may as well quarrel with us when we say there were Kings of Israel and Judah and yet cannot prove that there Courts and Revenues were as Stately and Great as now they are in England and France 't is enough if the Government of those Primitive times was but Analogous to what we call Kingly now And now that we have brought it both to a right of Primogeniture and a Paternal Right from whence will result the Divine we 'll consider what it is Mr. Sidney and his Advocates can say against it and see if there be any such absurdities in it as they more Seditiously then with any Sense and Reason suggest first for the right of Primogeniture that themselves will allow but 't is only because not able to contradict and besides as they imagin it makes for them and their Cause for by that course of descent they think our Asserters of a Divine right are oblig'd to deduce their Pedigree of their Kings form the Creation of the World in a right Line and therefore Mr. ‖ Vid. Paper at Execut Sidney says that such a supposition makes no King to have a Title to his Crown but what can deduce his Pedigree from the Eldest Son of Noah But for that absurdity which is truly their own by supposing it ours when it can't be truly deduced from the Doctrine and defence of a Divine Right we shall answer anon when we come to treat of the Paternal That Primogeniture had the Preheminence in the very Worlds Infancy if we do but believe the word of God which tells us that himself told Cain he should Rule over his younger Brother we cannot doubt of the truth of it besides Abraham's being a Prince and having a Precedence to his Brother Lot is also there recorded and Esau ‖ 25. Gen. v. 34. selling of his Birth-right Condemn'd as a Contempt of that preheminence to which God and Nature had prefer'd him and which himself only disposed of when he presum'd he was upon the point to dye and for his disregard of this Priviledge was he punisht too in the prevention of the * C. 27. Blessing and which is perhaps the only Instance in Sacred writ where a Lineal Discent and the Succession was interrupted and this too only occasion'd by his own Act. ‖ And we are expressly told the first born must not be disinherited no not for Private Affection Deu. 21. v. 15. If a man have two Wives the one hated the other lov'd and the first born be of her that was hated he may not make the Son of the belov'd first born before the Son of the hated that is indeed the first born but must give him a double Portion because the beginning of his strenght and the Right of the first-born is his vers 15 16 17. And that God himself did appropiate this precedency to the first-born may be gathered out of all the History of the Old Testament the only account that is extant and from which Authors gather all the Authentick Relation of the two first Epooches and most Memorable Periods or Intervals of time viz. That from the †First Period contain'd An. 1656. 2d 1518. SecunduÌ„ Intervallum a Varrone Mythicum appellatur Creation to the Flood and from the Flood to the first Olympiad i. e. to Ann. Mund. 3174. for the profane History of those times is accounted Fabulous and by Historians call'd so and from those Sacred Oracles it will appear that all their Kings of * So Jehoram succeeded his Father Jehoshaphat tho he had several younger brothers Chro. 21. v. 2. And after him Ahaziah his young Son because says the text all the Elder were slain Ibid. Chap. 22. v. 1. Which implies that they had succeeded if alive by Birth and Primogeniture Israel and Judah succeeded according to this Right of Primogeniture or where that fail'd by ‖ Numb 27. v. 9. Proximity of Blood And as the Almighty Countenanc'd such a Succession So does Nature it self which among Heathens was distinguisht from the Deity and may be so amongst Christians too if they consider it as the Work and Order of the Divine will for if she shall decide it she presumes the Eldest in years to be always the wisest too and 't is not Nature but a